Ebay, Gumtree & Autotrader Vehicle / Car Scams

[Rod Jones]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scam. Barclays provide Fraudsters Accounts

Boycie's email address list has now been added to my blog, the bots will harvest it again soon enough. Boycie's taken that list well past the 500 mark, I've had to create a second list because there appears to be a limit of 502 items per Blogger list (you can add more but can't save the changes).

Item 261351597311 is interesting. I "won" it to get it out of the way, negged the zero-feedback scammer, now I've received an eBay message from the seller:

thank you! I have just reported this!

followed by a request to cancel the transaction.

This is either:
a) Genuine seller trying to avoid the subsequent fees on a £3,500 sale, or
b) Scammer trying to avoid eBay investigation (a bit late for that, it's been reported through two different channels, one of which is usually particularly effective).

The cancellation request has removed the feedback, taking the score back to zero, so the buyer of this generator (from the same seller) is none the wiser.

[PhilipCohen]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scam. Barclays provide Fraudsters Accounts

Both these items have just now disappeared from eBay ...

As a matter of interest, before it too disappeared, the “Purchase History” for item 261346550254 at

http://offer.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAP...m=261346550254

seemed to indicate that it was unsold and that multiple offers from two offerors had been declined …

But it is still showing as sold in the completed listings at

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/woodluc/m....mplete=1&rt=nc

So much for eBay's database programming ...

eBay / PayPal / Donahoe: Dead Men Walking ...

[Rod Jones]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scam. Barclays provide Fraudsters Accounts

Yep, just checked my email and received an MC999 (a new one for me) notification from eBay: "The listing you're interested in is no longer available". The user account's been kicked.

[Boycie]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scam. Barclays provide Fraudsters Accounts

I've noticed an interesting and useful to know feature of the 'singleton' scam adverts (as opposed to the hacked dealer pages that end up in multiple postings). I noticed it a while back but I didn't look in to the significance. Contact is being made with the ad site and if nothing is done, I'll explain what the feature is.

If anyone else should spot it, please hang fire on mentioning what it is for now. Meanwhile I'll see if I can use it to perform a deeper search for scam adverts as I'm sure that although I'm picking up anything up to 100 scam adverts a day, I wouldn't be surprised to discover that actually there are a lot more I'm missing.

[Rod Jones]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scam. Barclays provide Fraudsters Accounts

Always nice to spot a common theme, if you get a good one it's like shooting fish in a barrel.

I reckon the ad sites shouldn't delete the ads, instead they should just de-index them so the scammers carry on churning out their ads but nobody sees them in the search results except the scammers themselves.

[Boycie]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scam. Barclays provide Fraudsters Accounts

I have a lot of time that I can devote to these fraudulent adverts and the responsibility for their massive increase cannot lie with anyone other than those allowing it to happen - the ad sites and the banks who allow scammers to use their bank accounts for fraud.

What I spotted on Autotrader UK was that one variety of fraudulent adverts was taking advantage of the offer to post free adverts for bikes under a value of £1,000. Mysteriously fraudsters were posting car adverts for £0, with the related photo album showing that they were inserted as bikes, but they were still coming up on site searches for cars. I've posted an example at SW though, of course this isn't the only method scammers use to post fraudulent adverts and I doubt that I detect every scam. Considering that on the worst night I detected six 'hacked' dealer pages and well over 100 fraudulent adverts, few people have any idea of the scale of the problem.

I have major concerns over some of the dealer pages ostensibly hacked by scammers. Undoubtedly some dealers are innocent victims, and the harm this does them is great, but others I'm not so sure about. Just because a dealer has a website and may be incorporated, doesn't make them honest. One I detected that had been hacked was what could be defined as a 'phoenix company' with little real substance.

[dixie2013]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scam. Barclays provide Fraudsters Accounts

GUMTREE AD REF 1027416444 AUDI A3 1.9TDI SPORTBACK, this was on gumtree from about 10th august, i reported the ad to gumtree on fri 17th but was still "LIVE" the following week, same vehicle but in a different part of the country, i have posted previous details and pics of the car which show on ebayscam hunter pics but for some reason i didn't post the gumtree ad ref so hopefully someone will see this to add to list

thanks dixie2013

[Boycie]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scam. Barclays provide Fraudsters Accounts

Friday is normally a busy night for the scammers and they'll be in a posting frenzy, especially as it's the last practical car buying weekend before Christmas.

Here's an example of the 'four wheeled bike' advert.

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/used-cars/bmw/1-series/used-bmw-1-series-118d-m-sport-5dr-derby-fpa-201312120497960?logcode=p

Click on one of the photos and you'll see that the album classifies the car as a bike, even though a car search on the website will find it. Note that it also has a £0 price.

I'm not flagging up and reporting all the scams, just the obvious ones and I'll be interested to see if I catch over 100 tonight. If the sites can make a living off the scammers alone, then perhaps they should be left to it, because there's no market for an ad site infested with scammers. Honest dealers can't compete and buyers won't get a car. It's not rocket science.

67 reported and recorded by 1.15 am and more will come. I'm often up late at night so that it's no problem for me to catch them as they're posted. I'd have expected more, but the night is young.

[Boycie]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scam. Barclays provide Fraudsters Accounts

The average person would be likely to put some faith in adverts posted on a website like Autotrader UK but, from my experience. that would be a big mistake and, even though I can recognise the bulk of the fraudulent adverts, I wouldn't ever use it simply because the volume of scams renders it useless.

Being retired and in poor health, I can spend a lot of time on this, but I can't keep pace with reporting and recording them and, to make matters worth, the scammers appear able to hack dealer pages at will to insert their own adverts. When the figure goes beyond 100 virtually every make and version of car is covered and the scams are the best deals. I've even come across main dealer pages being hacked and I have screen prints on file.

I won't even try to report all the scams any more, but I will record the email addresses so that they're available to be Googled.

[CleverClogs]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scam. Barclays provide Fraudsters Accounts

Here's an example of the 'four wheeled bike' advert.

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/used-cars/bmw/1-series/used-bmw-1-series-118d-m-sport-5dr-derby-fpa-201312120497960?logcode=p

Click on one of the photos and you'll see that the album classifies the car as a bike

Does it come with a bell?

Note that it also has a £0 price.

Would they accept a cheque for that?

[lspeakman]

Re: Barclays and vehicle scam via ebay and gumtree

Hi ...for anyone who is interested...i was scammed in July ....all comments on this thread - I issued proceedings against Barclays Bank ...and now have a court hearing date ...set for next February in Wigan County Court
For anyone on this site who can help/assist legally wishes to attend with myself I would be most grateful ...this could be a show case for all those who have been scammed and the monies ended up in a Barclays Bank account.
Please in box me.......

[Boycie]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scam. Barclays provide Fraudsters Accounts

Hello lspeakman

The major hurdle you'll have is that the bank can bat away most issues on the basis of client confidentiality, which applies even if the customer had been successfully prosecuted in a court of law, which he undoubtedly hasn't. I'm not a legal expert and I'm not trying to put you off, but it's best to know what you're likely to face and then to attempt to adopt a strategy that cannot be fobbed off so easily.

Questions such as - Did you observe UK money laundering legislation procedures in opening the account ? - the answer will be 'yes' - but that's just to get their mouths moving.

On being notified that the account was involved in fraudulent transactions did you immediately report it in accordance with UK money laundering legislation and freeze the funds on the account ?

This is the area you are more likely to be able to get 'traction' as anything specific and personal about the account is likely to be hidden behind client confidentiality, which seems to give a criminal an unfair advantage, and I can't really disagree.

I know that there are people working to try to reduce the volume of crimes this criminal group are committing, but it won't get anyone's money back and it won't put anyone in prison, but currently UK law enforcement and regulatory authorities appear uninterested and impotent.

[dixie2013]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scam. Barclays provide Fraudsters Accounts

maybe there could be or is a solicitor(no win no fee) who on behalf of several of us victims of these fraudsters request details of the barclays account holder were our money went under section 35 of the data protection act, the information commisioners office told me this has to be requested by either a solicitor or the police. If or when the police/nca take this massive case on am hoping they will request this information which hopefully will expose the accounts opened for the sole purpose of commiting fraud (wire fraud as our american friends call it) and money laundering, another avenue is proving e-bay/gumtree knew of the fake phishing emails before we were scammed and even when fraudulant ads were reported they didn't take action thus preventing more victims prob like us on here, we need a solicitor on board so we can all contact the same person about this together and take it forward, good luck ispeakman , i just wish we could be at the stage were we were going into court as a group with a legal team confident of proving barclays or ebay/gumtree to be liable

thanks dixie 2013

[PhilipCohen]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scam. Barclays provide Fraudsters Accounts

If anyone wants facts demonstrating eBay's calculated aiding and abetting of shill bidding wire fraud on the consumers of the world, peruse my case study at http://bit.ly/11F2eas

I apologise in advance for the length of the thread, but it is necessarily so, to put together all the bits to demonstrate that eBay is, beyond any doubt, a knowing and calculated criminal facilitator of such fraud ...

[dixie2013]

Re: Ebay & Gumtree Vehicle / Car Scam. Barclays provide Fraudsters Accounts

i will be writing to these 2 just incase they are not aware of the problem they have with there motors section and any section for that matter that the fraudsters use, i will send them a letter each week until i get what i want:

gumtree.com accelerates motors growth with appointment of director of motors

Posted on December 9, 2013 by admin
Gumtree’s dealer subscription packages have been an unequivocal success since launch on 1st October 2013.
To further support our significant expansion into the motor industry, we recently appointed Andrew Hooks as Director of Motors.
Andrew has experience as a strategy consultant in financial services and joins Gumtree after more than four years as UK Head of Business at eBay Motors and Electronics. Andrew will help to develop our site for thousands of private sellers as well as improving the professional dealer experience. Andrew’s main priority is to further accelerate overall demand in the motors category and to provide dealers with an even larger potential customer base.
Andrew reports to Gumtree UK General Manager, Robin Voogd, who is delighted to welcome him to the Gumtree family.
“We’re at an exciting place in our motors growth. We’re now seeing 13,000 cars posted on Gumtree each day*, thanks to the launch of our professional dealer package in October. And we’re by far the biggest C2C car listings site in the UK**. Andrew’s experience is vital for accelerating the growth of Gumtree Motors and for making the category an even better place for users to buy and sell cars.
“Word is spreading quickly about the great work we’re doing with dealers. They love our approach and great value proposition for connecting their cars with millions of buyers. It’s no wonder we are growing at such a pace.”
On his appointment Andrew says, “Gumtree Motors has more cars than ever before, new dealers are signing up every day, and Gumtree has become a popular alternative to other sites in the motors industry. There is still plenty of room to grow and the strategy we have developed will make Gumtree even more powerful for buyers and sellers of vehicles in the months and years to come. Gumtree has it all to play for and I’m looking forward to helping our team make the most of our huge potential.”
Andrew joins Gumtree in January 2014.

*Source: Gumtree Data (Oct 2012 – Nov 2013)

**Source: Gumtree live listings manually compared to competit

thanks dixie2013